


if you get there first, fly away

by icarusandtheson



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Horror Elements, M/M, Paranormal Investigators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 20:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18080798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusandtheson/pseuds/icarusandtheson
Summary: “It’s just a shadow," Alex says. "Weird, but not exactly definitive.”“Of course,” Washington says, convincing enough that Alex almost believes he's not just humoring him.------In which Alex is a small-time journalist, Washington is the paranormal investigator he's working with on a project, and Alex's skepticism can't protect him for very long.





	if you get there first, fly away

Alex grinds the heels of his palms into his eyes until he sees stars. It’s marginally better than the flat darkness behind his eyelids -- at least he can’t see things that aren’t there. 

“We can call it a night,” Washington offers. Alex’s hands fall away from his face; Washington’s eyes are on him, his brow furrowed. It’s a good look on him -- then again, infuriatingly, what  _ isn’t  _ \-- but Alex is getting tired of consistently being on the receiving end of it.  

“I’m fine,” Alex says. “Keep going. We’re mostly through the latest submissions, right? I want to at least finish those off for the update.” 

He glances down at his notebook, text blurring until he blinks, refocuses. He has enough to spin out a decent write-up from, but if he admits that he’ll have to leave Washington’s bright, warm study and go back to his apartment, back to the dark that’s begun to cling to his ceiling and tuck into corners.

He wants to ask if it’s normal, the nightmares and the shadows in the corners of his eyes. It has to be -- all these hours spent watching recordings of things that shouldn’t exist, that don’t have any rational explanation yet. Alex still manages to snatch a few hours of sleep out of that  _ yet,  _ doesn’t know how long that will stay true.  __

Washington’s gaze lingers, skeptical, but after a moment he turns back to his laptop and opens up the next file. “No exact location given on this one,” he explains. “It was sent in from somewhere upstate, but the sender claimed not to know anything about it.”

“So it could have happened here?” Alex remembers coming to New York, remembers how impossibly sprawling the city seemed to him then, let alone the entire state. Right now, it doesn’t feel like nearly enough space to put between him and whatever the hell happens in this video. 

“Possibly. There’s not much to go on, unfortunately -- it’s too short for me to be able to find any real clues.” He glances at Alex. “May I?”

Alex thinks about that  _ yet,  _ wonders how safe it will keep him tonight. “Yeah.” 

The first shot is just a carpeted floor. The camera pans up, shaky -- why these videos always have to be so very  _ Blair Witch  _ he’ll never understand, but he also can’t watch that movie anymore, so maybe he’s not giving them enough credit -- and focuses ahead into the dark. 

It looks like a kid’s bedroom, cramped and small. Alex can make out a shelf with a handful of books, a stuffed animal slumped on the floor like a dead thing. The bed is shoved against the far wall, right at the edge of the screen, and Alex can’t tell if it’s empty or not.    

The picture begins to break up into pixels, first at the edges, then crawling inwards. A sharp, insistent pain starts up at the back of Alex’s head, like something trying to scratch it’s way out. Something twitches in the corner of the screen, and then the video breaks apart into nonsense bits of corrupted color, ends. 

“I didn’t see anything,” Alex admits. 

Washington rewinds, starts the video again from the point where the pixelation begins and then pauses it. “Look at the far corner.” 

Alex does, and for a moment there’s nothing, just the itch at the back of his brain, the urge to look anywhere else -- then he sees it. Broken-bone angles and eyeshine, an upright abstraction of a figure.    

Alex’s muscles twitch, a full-body recoil that he catches at the last second.

He feels Washington’s eyes on him again. Alex doesn’t look at him; he’s reacted less to much more convincing evidence, and Washington is too smart not to read into that. 

“It’s just a shadow. Weird, but not exactly definitive.” 

“Of course,” Washington says, convincing enough that Alex almost believes he's not just humoring him. 

Alex glances down at his notes, scratches out a few points, more for appearances than any actual necessity. He’s never had trouble remembering anything Washington shows him. 

Alex drags his eyes back to the screen, avoiding the thing in the corner; there’s nothing on the walls, no posters or pictures. Just the books and the sad-looking toy. 

“There’s not actually a kid in there, right?” he asks. Even with the video paused, the bed is in shadow -- god, Alex hopes it’s just shadow -- and he can’t make out the shape of the covers. 

“It’s an easy enough setting to stage,” Washington says.

“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?” 

Washington says nothing. Alex caves, looks at him, and his expression is the kind of gentle that digs under skin and stays there. Alex doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it. Washington walks into rooms like he’s never been afraid of anything in his life, and Alex doesn’t need anything from him. 

He turns back to the screen, forces his eyes back to where they don’t want to go. “Right. Can we continue, please?” 

Alex’s hand is aching. He loosens his grip on his pen. There’s a dot imprinted deeply into the page, the ink over-saturated and bleeding. 

\------------

The city buzzes outside his bedroom window, alive and thriving. 

Alex shoves a hand through his hair, winces at the sweat prickling at his scalp. His ankles still ache with the acute, vulnerable pain of something pressing down on his Achilles tendon, holding him down with inhuman strength. 

There’s nothing. He’s turned on every light in the room, and of course there’s nothing. No bruises, and nothing lurking at the foot of his bed. The scent isn’t as strong as it was when he woke up -- now it’s just the sour fear-smell of his own sweat, the thick, nauseating musk he woke up to is gone from everywhere but the back of his tongue. 

His phone is on his lap, Washington’s number staring back at him from the brightness of his screen. 

Washington’s broad hand clasping his shoulder,  _ “Call me if you need anything.”  _

The frozen, impossible angles of the thing on the screen. Alex hasn’t been to church since he was twelve years old, but when he looked at it something at the back of his brain said  _ unholy  _ and it runs through his mind on a loop, now. 

Alex doesn’t believe in things he can’t see. Outside, car horns blare, people laugh and shout and swear, and that’s real. 

Also real: there’s nothing in the room. The scent is already fading. 

Alex switches his phone off, puts it back on his nightstand. 

**Author's Note:**

> *From the Dare to Write Challenge. Prompt 237: fairy dust on bookshelves.  
> *The premise for this fic is very, very loosely based on "The Black Tapes Podcast".  
> *Thanks for reading! Leave a kudos and comment if you liked it!  
> *Find me on Tumblr at [icarusandtheson](https://icarusandtheson.tumblr.com/)


End file.
